


The Worst Hair Day Ever

by cable69



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 13:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5667565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cable69/pseuds/cable69
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She attempted to brush the monstrosity out but broke four teeth in the first minute and quickly abandoned that tactic in order to salvage the remains of her now-bedraggled comb. She wasted another minute staring at the aggressive tangle in horror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Worst Hair Day Ever

**Author's Note:**

> "Summary: This story is a bit of a take off on typical TOS episodes, a chance to experiment with pairings (um, yeah, the pairings are Uhura/McCoy, Kirk/Sulu, Spock/Scotty/Chekov, and Chapel/Rand—I really like completely bizarre pairings), and an excuse to write Uhura, who I just love."
> 
> fun fact, I couldn't find a tag for Spock/Scotty/Chekov, so... rarepair win, i guess?
> 
> originally posted on ff.net; unedited

It had been a very long day.

Nyota hit the pillow like a sucker punch and was asleep in half a second. She drooled a miniature lake into her pillow, and when she was awoken after what felt like two minutes of light dozing (but was in reality about nine solid hours of twitching REM sleep) she had to wipe hastily at her face before answering the vid-com on the wall.

“Surface mission,” said John Kyle apologetically. “Captain wants you to the transporter room in five.”

“Five minutes?” said Nyota. “I just woke up!”

“Sucks for you,” said John with an evil grin. “Also, what happened to your hair?”

Nyota scowled at him and cut the feed. She scrambled over to her mirror and nearly scrambled away again. Oh, God. Evidently she had tossed and turned heavily in her sleep (which she legitimately felt like she hadn’t profited from at all), begetting the nest of an insane, probably rabid badger in her hair.

She attempted to brush the monstrosity out but broke four teeth in the first minute and quickly abandoned that tactic in order to salvage the remains of her now-bedraggled comb. She wasted another minute staring at the aggressive tangle in horror. Finally she gathered the rest of her hair on top of her head and rummaged in her closet for the regulation hat all Starfleet officers were issued. It was a rounded, short-billed sort of coquette that didn’t look too terrible, although it was off-putting, since Nyota hadn’t worn a hat since her graduation mortarboard; she was simply not a hat person.

Nevertheless, it solved her problem. She tugged on her surface uniform, grabbed her tricorder, communicator, and earpiece, and ran flat-out for the transporter room.

She was a minute late, but that was okay, because Kirk was two minutes late, and he was evidently bringing everybody else from the bridge, so Nyota got a chance to collapse against the control panel and chat breathlessly with Joe Tormolen, who gave the hat a questioning look but thankfully didn’t ask. Kirk strode in eventually, followed by McCoy, Chekov, Tony Giotto, and Christine Chapel, who mouthed “What’s with the hat?” to Nyota, who replied in a whisper, “My hair looks like a wild dog tried to make a house out of it using a hurricane.” Christine looked appropriately horrified and whispered back, “I am so sorry about this sad occurrence that I will give you either my chocolate ration for the week or my firstborn, your choice.” Nyota replied, “Your chocolate ration would be tastier, unless we can get some A-1 sauce on this planet.” At this point, Christine pinched her breast for suggesting infant cannibalism, and Kirk leered at them, so they ceased and desisted. 

“Ready to beam?” said Kirk, strapping on his utility belt and leaping onto the transporter pad.

“Of course not, sir,” said Nyota as politely as she could, taking a few cautionary steps away from Christine. “Where exactly are we going and why?”

“Oh. I forgot you weren’t on the bridge, Lieutenant.” Kirk smiled brilliantly. “We’re beaming down to Knossor, a rather Hellenistic planet currently having some weather issues, in that their biggest city is about to flood pretty badly. We’re offering them our help. You are needed to translate.”

“What language do they speak?”

“Hell if I know. Positions, everybody!”

Nyota rolled her eyes and stepped to the back of the transporter pad, next to Tony Giotto, who was checking his heavy phaser. He was taller than the rest of them and about forty years old, with elegant silver-black hair and stone black eyes. He was one of the most capable men Uhura had ever met and she was delighted to have him on the mission. His fingers moved over the phaser like it was an extra limb he was testing the flexibility of. Tony shot a polite smile at her, holstered the phaser, and stood at attention. 

Christine took her position behind Leonard. She looked angelic in her pale blue nurse’s uniform. She had a long, set jaw, and the lines of her lips were firm, but curved. Still, she poked nervously at her medical tricorder and pushed the same wisp of hair off of her ear three times before settling into her stance. Christine could be tough as nails at times, and flighty as a bird at others.

Pavel bounced on the balls of his feet up to his position in front of Nyota. If Tony was a rock and Christine was a bird, Pavel was a puppy. His brown eyes were almost comically large and his lip quivered with excitement. Nyota was displeased to note that he had been issued a phaser. It wasn’t that Pavel was untrustworthy, just a bit young.

Kirk, on the other hand, was mature enough, if more of an Apollo than a Zeus or Poseidon. Nyota knew he was an almost brilliant commander, but he was still the most annoying person she had ever met in her entire life. He was also preternaturally beautiful, with those ice-blue eyes and clever, smiling lips. She hated him more than slightly. 

Leonard, though. There was a man. He always hunched, so that when he straightened, everybody paid attention to his unexpected height. He tended to be harried and wide-eyed, and always protested urgently against Kirk’s outrageous schemes. Many of the crew avoided him, associating him only with his alarmingly thorough seasonal physicals and hypospray campaigns, and called him crazy and cracked behind his back. But he was an incredible doctor. Nyota had seen him in medbay, absolutely calm and in control during a bloody triage. His eyes were even bluer than Kirk’s; they looked like a deep ocean rather than a shallow sheet of ice.

Kirk glanced around to make sure they were all in place. He turned his wide smile to Joe and said, “Energize.”

The golden haze gathered, gleamed, and pulled them apart. Nyota relaxed into the warm buzz of atoms and tensed as she reformed, the mist of gold clearing to reveal a lush, rock-strewn landscape, and also three women.

“Oh dear,” Nyota heard Christine sigh, and agreed. Everybody was unsurprised, except for Pavel, who was confused, as Kirk strutted forward, preening. The three women were identical, with sea-blue hair like cords and pale, teal skin and, most importantly, very sheer white robes that clung energetically to their perfectly proportioned forms. The women stood side-by-side, arms clasped in front of their bellies, their attitudes of arch carelessness evident in the tension and pose of their bodies. They had high, sharp cheekbones and deep-set eyes, and they were so thin that they were almost skeletal. Still, there was something captivating about them.

“Hello-o,” said Kirk to the women, who, as one, arched their eyebrows. Leonard snorted into his sleeve. Tony elbowed him. “I’m Captain James Kirk of the USS Enterprise. I heard you have a storm coming.”

“We greet you, Captain Kirk,” said the three women as one, eyebrows descending, and Nyota realized that they were speaking ancient Greek. Kirk’s brow knotted in consternation. She moved forward hastily.

“I am Lieutenant Nyota Uhura of the USS Enterprise,” said Nyota, the language thick on her tongue. “Do you understand Standard?”

The women, who were, Nyota thought, creepy rather than sexy, turned their unblinking gaze to her. “We understand what is spoken to us,” they said. Their voices were like lyres, sharp and flat, depending; not a one of them was in tune with the other, although they spoke at the same pitch and with the same speed. They had very sharp white teeth and their eyes were completely black.

“I will translate your words for the Captain,” said Nyota. “Let me inform him that you understand what he says.”

She told Kirk, who asked the women what they were called.

“We are the Aspasia,” said the women, drawing themselves up craning their long necks. “We interpret the will of the people. We have seen that you will help us. Please tell your Captain that we take you into the City to see our leader.”

Nyota had to giggle about them saying anything along the lines of “taking them to their leader” because it was just so classic. The Aspasia, moving separately and yet in the same manner, led them down a rocky, occasionally staired path into an open valley. At the bottom of the valley was a large town, built almost entirely of white marble and paved with sky-blue stone that gleamed in the clouded sunlight. Nyota could hear the rushing of a huge river close beyond the tops of the hills that lined the valley, and could see, faintly, a mass of dark stormhead above the valley’s northernmost peak.

Kirk radioed the Enterprise on the way down, checking in with Spock, who assured Kirk that he would maintain orbit. They established that Kirk would make contact once more either after speaking with the leader or once an hour had passed.

Kirk, Pavel, and Christine were walking as close to the Aspasia as they could without actually drooling on them, and Tony was responsibly bringing up the rear. Leonard had been in front of Nyota, but halfway down the path, he fell back to walk next to her. “Nice hat,” he said, without preamble, but with a grin.

Nyota glared at him.

He laughed. “It’s just a little incongruous,” he said. “You’re not a hat person.”

“I know, Leonard,” snapped Nyota, sidestepping a pothole. The path was clean but rough. “You’re not a phaser person, but you’ve got one.”

“They give ‘em out at testosterone meetin’s,” said Leonard casually, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops. His Science blue shirt stretched thin over his chest as he stepped down.

“You seem weirdly not on edge,” said Nyota. “Do you think this is actually going to be a boring mission?”

“Have we ever had a borin’ mission?”

Nyota reflected on this. “I don’t think so. Somebody’s managed to fuck something up on every planet so far. Remember that time Kirk pissed off the Slug Lord of Badzar IX?”

“That was terrible,” said Leonard with a shudder. “I’ve never been able to look at mucus the same since. No, I’m just resigned to somethin’ terrible happenin’.” He held her gaze for a moment longer than she expected and she nearly tripped over a chunk of marble.

They reached the town within a few minutes. The place held probably five thousand people, all of whom were teal-skinned like the Aspasia. They were an extremely vocal species. The women ran around shouting at each other in Greek and the men spoke a type of sign language that required the constant movement of their hands and faces. Everybody wore form-hugging white cotton sheets tied with a very strange looking sort of reed that was bright yellow and purple and seemed quite mismatched with the rest of the formal setting. All of the people were strikingly beautiful. None of the women were as skeletally thin as the Aspasia, but they had the same sharp good looks and thick, almost sculpted hair. The men were larger than the women, and significantly thicker, with eyes that were completely cobalt blue rather than black. A majority of both sexes carried swords.

The Aspasia led the six officers straight up the middle of the market. The Knossorians surrounded the way, coming out to watch the crew and chatter. They seemed friendly enough, which Nyota was quite thankful for, since they looked so intimidating.

“Interesting,” said Tony speculatively from behind Nyota. She glanced back at him. He was staring into the crowd, hand resting on his belt near his phaser. “They’re staring at you, Lieutenant Uhura.”

Nyota’s eyes swept around the crowd. Oh, God. They were staring at her, and talking even faster as they did.

Kirk fell back, and Nyota had to give him credit for being more alert than she was. “Any idea what this is about, Lieutenant?” he asked casually. She saw him give Tony a very small nod and wondered what it meant.

“No, sir,” she said crisply. “Perhaps they’re noticing that my skin color is different from all of yours.”

“It’s a possibility,” said Kirk, eyes constantly moving. “This would be a good opportunity for a lesson in racial sensitivity, huh? Too bad we have a mission. Let me know if they single you out in any other way, will you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Kirk returned to ogling the Aspasia, although something deep within Nyota whispered out that he just might be smarter than he looked. She ignored this as heresy. Leonard, who had retreated to a polite distance while Kirk was speaking with her, returned to his place by her side.

“What’d he say?” he demanded roughly.

“The Knossorians are staring at me,” said Nyota quietly.

Leonard’s eyebrows disappeared into his hair as he scanned the crowd obviously and intently. The Knossorians tittered and Nyota blushed. “I don’t like it,” Leonard declared, his scowl deepening. “Tony, if they so much as take a step towards her, don’t be afraid to shoot.”

“I have my orders,” said Tony mildly.

The Aspasia led them into a colonnaded building in the center of the town that looked similar to the others, except for one dramatic difference: it was a stark, unreflective black, where the other structures had been a sparkling white. The crew climbed a set of stairs and passed through a short peristyle before walking into a vast central chamber that was open to the air. Rails lined the three sides of a great pit that took up most of this chamber. Another wide staircase descended before them, and at its base, within the pit, was a huge silver bench, ornately carved and embellished, and covered in grotesque statues of inhuman figures, all twisted in poses of pain or malice or ugly lust. In the midst of these statues was a simple, beautiful throne hewn from the same black marble as the building was constructed from, and on that throne was a very naked man.

“This is Thanos,” said the chorus that was the Aspasia. “He is our King.”

Thanos observed them through heavily lidded eyes. He looked the same as all of the other Knossorians the crew had seen, except that he wore a thick silver crown on his wide head. He stood to greet them, unfolding like a book, and signed something that Nyota interpreted as, “A welcome to our city for you, honored guests.” Then he did something strange: he stared at Nyota for a full minute without speaking.

Nyota could practically hear Tony’s stance shifting. Kirk’s shoulders went stiff, but that was the only sign he gave of concern. Leonard, though, started muttering to himself.

Thanos signed something that Nyota didn’t understand much of. She thought she saw the words “mastery” and “savior.” The Aspasia paused before translating.

“Thanos greets the bearer of the shfayr,” or at least that was the final word sounded like. 

“Would you repeat that last part?” Nyota asked. 

“Thanos,” said the Aspasia again, “greets the bearer of the shfayr.”

“Honored Aspasia,” said Nyota patiently. “What is the—shayfayer?”

The Aspasia stared at her. Thanos stared at her. The crew of the Enterprise stared at her.

“The shfayr,” said the Aspasia, as if they were explaining bread. “The Dominion Relic. The Badge of Great Power. The Rock of Rhodin. The Lightning of All Souls.”

Looks were exchanged as Nyota translated for this.

“Honored Aspasia,” said Nyota, her teeth grinding a bit. “Where I come from, we have no such memories of this object of which you speak. None of us bear this object.”

“But you do,” said the Aspasia. “You wear it on your head.”

“What?” said Nyota blankly.

“Your hat,” said the Aspasia, completely and seriously deadpan. “It contains the power of God.”

There was a bit of a silence as Nyota’s brain tripped, fell, and wondered if it ought to bother getting back up again.

This is, she thought, the worst hair day ever.

Nyota made some motions at the Aspasia and Thanos that pled for patience, and finished translating the whole thing to Kirk, who, after she finished speaking, blinked a few times.

“What?”

“That’s exactly what I said.”

“Can you—get them to—like—clarify, or something?” said Kirk, looking desperate. Nobody else had spoken: they were all staring at Nyota’s hat. She glared at them.

“Okay, guys. Quit. Guys. It’s just a hat.”

“What if it does contain ze power of God?” whispered Pavel, eyes wide.

“Shut up,” hissed Nyota.

“Um, ask them if this really matters,” said Kirk, twiddling his thumbs awkwardly. “We need to get started with the dam and the evacuation pretty soon. The city’ll be underwater in twelve hours if we don’t bring the heavy equipment down. Do they care more about your hat than about their, you know, lives?”

“I’ll ask,” said Nyota, and did so. Thanos and the Aspasia replied. Nyota turned back to Kirk.

“Turns out,” said Nyota, feeling a blinding headache coming on, “that they care more about my hat.”

Things went downhill from there.

The Aspasia explained excitedly that the Knossorians had been waiting for the shfayrohn, or One Who Wore A Hat, to come to their city for thousands of years. Nyota did a lot of covering her face at this point. Thanos kept asking if he could wear the hat. He had changed from being a solemn, fierce-looking leader to an eager boychild. Nyota fended him off as Kirk tried to talk to the Aspasia, who had started grinning alarmingly. Their teeth were glinting.

“Listen,” Nyota finally said. “We’ll let you have the hat after we’ve evacuated the city. But right now, we really need to get everybody out, in case the dam doesn’t work.”  
Thanos nearly had a heart attack at the prospect of being given the hat. He danced outside and, with the help of the Aspasia, gathered the Knossorians before the peristyle of the central building that they had been in. Nyota was ushered forward (a very sour expression on her face) and proclaimed to be the long-awaited shfayrohn. The crowd positively exploded with excitement. 

“Yeah, yeah,” said Nyota, not looking forward to taking the hat off and having everybody see her hair.

“Good day for you,” Leonard murmured in her ear. She glared at him. “Well, it’s not all the time you get proclaimed a savior on an alien world. Just imagine what our ancestors were lackin’ in their day-to-day experiences.”

“Nothing at all,” growled Nyota. “I’m regretting choosing Starfleet as the sound option for repaying my student loans.”

Leonard frowned at her. “What kind of Dark Ages were you livin’ in? They made education free a hundred years ago.”

“It’s a metaphor,” hissed Nyota.

Through Nyota and the Aspasia, Kirk coordinated the evacuation. The Knossorians had a stronghold at a hill nearby (which was evidently called the Rhokosia—Nyota had no idea where they came up with these names) that he ordered them to retreat to. In it was housed their only warp ship, a tiny, bullet-shaped craft that they had constructed, despite not even having invented the steam engine, about a hundred years before. The ship was the reason that the Knossorians knew of the Federation, enough to ask for assistance when their advanced weather technology showed the approaching deluge. Leonard, who had some sociological background, gave a whispered history to Nyota about the Knossorians, who had no methods of transportation besides their legs and the ship, and were able to build incredibly complex chaos-based computing systems (some of the only in the galaxy capable of predicting weather, stock market trends, and certain social events) without even being able to construct buildings over five stories in height (much less the required dam). They were a puzzling society, to say the least.

Nyota, Leonard, and Tony went with the Knossorians. Originally it was going to have been just Nyota and Leonard, but after the hat incident (as Kirk had started calling it), it was figured that Nyota might need protection. Kirk and Pavel stayed behind to supervise construction. With Tony leading the way, the three of them climbed the Rhokosia, Thanos in the lead.


End file.
